Dewey’s Hegelian moves

Dewey’s primary move appears to be the Hegelian dialectic (thesis / antithesis / synthesis ). An example of this move is his analysis of Marxism and Libertarianism. He saw the two of them opposed within a common assumption that collective human action is predominantly economic in nature. Within this view socialism appears to exist along the continuum between the extremes. Dewey, however, places socialism outside the continuum, for the reason that it acknowledges the existence and legitimacy of other forces which influence collective human life both at the individual and coordinated-collective (a.k.a. political) scale.

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I tried to draw the Hegelian dialectic structure before I knew Hegel (or Kant, or probably someone else) had invented it. I called it a “duodualism” diagram.

Duodualism

After I drew it, I began to see the form everywhere in both in ideas and in symbolism (for instance in the Carthusian cross).

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